


I'm in love with truth and sick and tired of this youth

by gonta



Series: Smile, You're on Camera! [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Backstory, Gen, POV Third Person, Pre-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 21:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10290881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonta/pseuds/gonta
Summary: [MAJOR NDRV3 SPOILERS]Everywhere she looks, she feels the eyes of God upon her. And she cannot support their weight.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I didn't think I'd do another one of these either.  
> I made some choices here that are explained in the end notes.  
> I hope you enjoy this, it was very fun to write!

She still remembers the excitement, the apprehension. The plane took off a week ago, taking her and her family with it. It was a new start for all of them, her father had said when he told the rest of her family that they were going to be moving to Japan. They had relatives in Japan, after all, and there was work to be found there. And she had been full of anticipation, at first. The girl had only been on vacations to exotic places when she was very small, but she had never moved to anywhere. And this was new, and thus very exciting.

It was bittersweet, of course. She had to hug her friends goodbye, thank her teachers for all that they had done, and stand at a safe, awkward distance away while her parents said their farewells to the people at the synagogue. But after all was said and done, the tanned girl had gotten on that airplane and hadn’t looked back, pressing her face against the thick glass of the window to get a view of the vast blue ocean below. She’d closed her eyes, trying to inhale the salty sea breeze - but had stopped when she remembered that she was on an airplane, and the air smelled like hand sanitizer and old luggage.

That was considerably less romantic and exciting.

But lately, she finds herself looking back. School is beginning to approach fast - how queer it is, she thinks, that it starts in the spring. Still, she tries to keep a positive attitude. Maybe she’ll find friends at school, friends that will  make her feel welcome.

But out of the corner of her eye she sees her mother’s hand brush the mezuzah attached to the doorpost, and her heart sinks.

The truth is that even at the best of times, Angie Yonaga is a stranger in her own family. 

 

She doesn't know why she thinks that school is going to go well, really. Her Japanese is clumsy at best, and it shows as her teacher makes her stand in front of the class and introduce herself. “My name is Angie Yonaga,” she tries to say, “I’m from Hawaii, and I like to draw. It's nice to meet you all!”

But the words are heavy in her mouth, and she finds herself shrinking back quickly. The eyes of the whole class are on her, and her legs buckle under their weight. 

The blazer of her uniform is stiff and starched, heavy on her shoulders. Different from the looser shirts she wore to school for most of her life. The teacher sees her struggling and quickly prods her along, and she's grateful to eventually sit down. 

Off to a great start, it seems. 

Angie was never the greatest of students, being prone to daydreaming even at the best of times. She excelled in artistic projects, but her drive for more academic fields of study was lacking, so sayeth her old teachers. 

It's even harder at her new school - the curriculum is far more vigorous, and she struggles to keep up. Her notes are a patchwork of English and scribbled Japanese, and her teacher narrows her eyes as she catches sight of them. She doesn't say anything, but Angie’s face still flushes red with embarrassment. 

Some girls do approach her at lunch, curious about her and the kind of life she led before moving to Japan. She's happy to indulge them, and she feels a glimmer of hope as they invite her into their circle of friends. But the conversation eventually turns from Angie herself to their own lives, to inside jokes that she can't parse. The glimmer disappears, and she's scraping the outside of the circle once again. 

The novelty of her person has worn off quickly, it seems. She should have expected as much. 

She decides to join the fine art club as soon as signups start, but a strange feeling develops in the pit of her stomach when she sees another girl in her class drawing. She's good, almost  _ too _ good, and Angie’s left with her feelings of inadequacy and loneliness once again. 

The first day of school could have gone worse. 

But it could have gone a lot better, too. 

 

There’s one thing she has going for her in Japan, that she didn’t have going for her back home. She discovers it one night, all by herself in her house - her parents have already gone to sleep, but Angie is still particularly jetlagged. Her eyes are still wide with childlike possibility, even with the strange, hollow feelings stirring inside of her. It’s in this state that she finds herself sitting in disheveled pajamas, clicking through channels on the television. It’s the normal late night drivel - talk shows, cartoons with no real audience on their last legs. She doesn’t expect to find anything particularly interesting - it’s out of boredom, nothing more.

That’s why it’s such a surprise when she stumbles across a particular show. 

It’s clearly old reruns, judging by the camera quality, but she’s still entranced. The scenes that unfold before her are full of bloodshed, of course, but they’re also populated by interesting, talented people. As she watches on, she finds herself getting attached to them - particularly this one girl. She’s clearly foreign, although not in the same way as Angie herself. Still, the other characters admire her and respect her, and include her in their conversations. Even as the body count increases and people drop like flies, she still persists.

She’s loved by the group.

Angie’s fist clenches gently. She spends the rest of the night watching the reruns until they spill into the next season and the sun begins to rise over the sleepy horizon. 

 

Her family goes to the synagogue on Saturdays, but there’s so few of them in this country that the car rides there are long and arduous. She has quite a long time to reflect during those early-morning drives, and often spends them staring out the window so intensely that she can see past the faint reflection of her own sea-blue eyes. The scenery becomes more familiar to her over time, but it serves as a mere distraction for the discomforting experience that’s sure to follow. 

For a good two hours, she sits on a hard wooden bench and swings her feet back and forth as prayers are recited and good will is wished upon the attendees. Angie barely parses any of it, and feels as though she’s adrift in a vast sea of nothingness. Just television static and empty space.

She wishes that she could understand - religion is what brought her family together, after all. Her parents met at a religious event, and the concept has served them well over the years. After all, her parents are a happy couple, more at peace with each other than she is with the world. But she’s never been able to quite grasp it - it always seems just out of her reach, on the edge of what she can get. 

She’s surrounded by a community, but she’s still so alone.

The rest of her family seems at peace during that long, drawn-out period, but Angie’s stomach turns. Why can’t she get what the rest of them are getting from this? Is there something wrong with her?

She still has the long drive home to mull this question over, but as the weeks drag on, she still doesn’t have an answer. 

 

Watching the reruns of the show -  _ DanganRonpa _ , she’s heard it’s called - has become a sort of ritual for her, something that no one can take from her. She’s moved on from the season she first discovered, and has begun to work her way through the rest of them. The show’s been going on for an impressively long time, she notes, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she ogles the television screen.

There’s a certain trend that she notices - almost every season, without fail, a foreign (or at least foreign-looking) character survives. Noticing this fact evokes a strange feeling within her that she can’t quite put words to. The character usually ends up being accepted as part of the group - often times, they’re made to sacrifice themself at the end, but that doesn’t matter. They made it to that point, and that’s what she takes away from it. 

On a whim, she brings up the show with her group of “friends” at school, and is surprised to find that not only do they know it, but they enjoy it in full. She sparks a discussion about the show, and for once she feels like she’s a part of something. They ask her about which character was her favorite (she’s a bit hesitant to tell them about the connection she felt to the foreign girl who she saw, so she states that it’s the SHSL Ambassador from season 46), and she smiles when they laud her on her good taste in contestants. 

For once, she feels as though she’s a real part of something. She’s not on the outside, looking in. 

It’s at this point when one of the girls, one with piercing blue eyes and a maroon sweatshirt over her uniform, speaks. 

“Have any of you ever considered auditioning?”

Angie raises her eyebrows. But before she can speak, another girl interjects. “Nah, my parents would kill me,” she declares, twirling a lock of curly brown hair around her finger. “I wish I could, though. I’d be a great contestant, I’m a natural-born survivalist.”

A chubby girl with pigtails giggles politely. “Urushijima-chan, you can barely last a day without makeup. I don’t think you could survive a killing game.”

“Aagh, shut up!”

“Wait!” Angie finally manages to get out. “You can… you can audition for that show? Like, to be a contestant?”

The attention of the other girls immediately turns to her, though they looked more curious than anything. “Yeah, of course,” one of them pipes up. “How do you think they get new contestants?”

She puts her hands in her lap, staring down at her too-polished shoes. “I was just curious,” she says, and the conversation quickly turns to other things that Angie isn’t as familiar with. But a seed has planted itself in her mind, a seed that begins to take root and grow quickly.

 

“Hey, mom?”

Angie’s mother is a kind woman, ripe with age, her skin kissed by the sun. She turns to Angie, who’s hopelessly dragging her bookbag along the floor of the family room. “Yes?” She speaks in response, her face creasing with concern. “Is everything alright, Angie?”

She takes a moment to scratch the back of her neck nervously before speaking. “How do you figure out whether you should make a decision or not?”

“Is this about school?” Angie hesitates for a moment before deciding to nod. It’s easier than explaining that she’s deliberating whether or not to sign up for a life-ending reality TV show. She’s clearly made the right choice, as the tension in her mother’s shoulders eases. “Ah, I get it. Mhm…” She rests her hand on her chin. “There’s a certain paradigm that states: if you never make any strong moral decisions, you never get the opportunity to be held accountable for those decisions.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

Her mother chuckles. “Being held accountable for something is the first step to bettering yourself, is what I’ve always heard.  _ Teshuvah _ is what they call it - return from something. And if if you don’t get that, you’ll know that you made the right decision.”

Angie is quiet for a moment, taking a second to mull this concept over. Then, a smile crosses her face. “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”   
“Of course. Angie, you know that if you need anything, you can always come to me, right?”

She knows that this is one thing she can’t come to her for explicitly. And if it goes right, she’ll never have to embrace her empty feelings of piousness ever again.

“Okay.” She says, and that’s enough.

 

A woman in a well-tailored suit sits across from her on the day she goes to audition for the show. Angie can feel her scrutinizing her over the rims of her half-moon glasses, but she assumes that that’s what they have to do for every contestant. Even so, she still feels her gaze upon her like the eyes of God himself. 

The Team Danganronpa employee shuffles Angie’s files. “So,” she begins, “I’m going to skip the formalities. Why are you auditioning? What do you hope to gain from this experience?”

Angie shyly crosses her legs, demurely as she possibly can. “I…” She coughs. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanna be part of something.”

A perfectly groomed eyebrow is raised. “Oh?”

“I’ve been feeling really detached, from everything… school is hard. I moved here a few months ago from Hawaii, and I don’t have a lot of friends. And my family’s really religious, and-” There’s something intoxicating and chemical about the interview room, a smoky heat like sweat that penetrates every nook and cranny. It makes her keep talking. “I’ve seen your show. Foreign characters are well-liked, most of the time. I mean, there’s a few exceptions, from what I can tell-”

The woman smirks. “Season 23?”

She smiles shyly. “Yeah, that one. But that’s not the only reason.” And here’s the clincher. Angie folds her hands in her lap. “I’ve… always felt that I’ve been missing something with my family’s religion. I want to feel closer to that. I want to understand.” 

“Ah. People on the verge of death often look to religion to try and save them, you know.”

She allows herself a small, secretive smile, and closes her eyes. “Yeah.”

The woman asks more questions, but Angie finds herself forgetting them as quickly as they come. In the end, the woman holds out a hand for her to shake. 

“That’ll do. Wait two weeks, and if you get a call then, you’re in. It was a pleasure to interview you, Yonaga-san.”

She takes the hand in hers, her marine eyes meeting the woman’s nondescript brown ones. “You can call me Angie, you know. I don’t mind.”

There’s a moment of hesitation, and Angie swears she sees a strange hunger cross the woman’s face. But in an instant, it’s gone as soon as it had arrived. Replaced with a genuine smile, albeit one that seems to be wrapped in cellophane.

“Okay, then. Angie it is.”

 

Her “friends” have discussed the vague rumors about the “SHSL Hunt” that picks up new contestants. It’s been on her mind ever since she got the call. Every inch of her body has tingled with anticipation over the newfound possibility. The idea of what adventures await her once she goes on the show. 

With her, it’s less of a “hunt” and more of a retrieval. When a black sedan pulls up next to her as she walks to school, Angie does not need any convincing or coercion to go along with the suited men inside, whose faces she can’t remember no matter how she tries. They do have a pin with the same logo on the collars of their suit jackets - a little black, white, and red insignia that Angie knows well. It tells her that she’s in good hands. 

In spite of herself, she lets out a little giggle, not caring that the front of the car seems to be swimming before her eyes. 

Maybe this is the closest she’s ever gotten to a religious experience, and the closest she’ll ever get. For the moment, she feels at peace with the universe.

 

Silence. 

She slowly drifts into consciousness. She’s still dressed in her uniform, that ill-fittingly stiff thing. Angie notes that her breathing sounds louder than usual, amplified within the confines of…

A box?

No, a locker. There’s slits in the door, it’s like the one she uses at school to store her art supplies in. Tentatively, she pushes open the door and it lets out a loud creak that makes her jump. 

Someone else is in the room the door opens up to - a classroom, overgrown with vines that remind Angie of where she used to live. Uncharacteristic of the urban city where she’s spent the past several months with her family. But back to the other person - she’s sitting on top of a desk, on the table part not meant the least bit for sitting. The skirt of her seifuku is long and blue, and her legs waywardly swing back and forth. She perks up when she sees Angie emerge from the locker, her eyebrows furrowing slightly in worry. 

“Oh! I didn’t think there would be anyone else here. It’s good to see a friendly face in a scary place like this, isn’t it? Almost like… oh, I’m prattling on again. I’m sorry!”

“You don’t need to apologize!” Something about the girl’s meek, polite attitude eases the tension in Angie’s body somewhat. Like a childhood friend she never had, or a face in a crowd that she can’t recognize but that somehow fills her with comfort anyway. “So you were taken here too, eeehh??” she asks, her eyes wide with curiosity.

The girl sighs. “I’m afraid so. It’s strange, isn’t it? Upon waking up, I found this, though…” She holds out a piece of crumpled paper to Angie, and she takes it without hesitation. Scanning over its surface, she can see that the phrase  _ GO TO THE GYM. URGENT. _ is written across it in a childish scrawl. 

She gives the other girl a glance. “So? Should we go there?”

“That seems like the most likely course of action, yes,” she sighs, pushing her glasses up on her nose as the two begin to walk out of the room. “By the way - I’m Tsumugi Shirogane. What’s yours? Uh… your name, I mean.”

“Angie Yonaga!”

“Nice to meet you, A-” Shirogane stops short, her mouth agape, as she stares at something behind Angie. Slowly, Angie herself turns around - and is faced with a hulking metal golem.

And it’s coming straight towards them, intoning something in a tinny metal voice that Angie’s ears barely parse. Shirogane screams, and pulls Angie along with her - and the two are running, running towards the gym that they inexplicably know the location of, and for the first time Angie finds herself praying.

 

They slam the doors to the gym shut behind them, and Angie turns to face the few others that populate the room. She moves away from Shirogane, positioning herself near a lanky guy with long hair. She moves to give him a friendly grin, but one look into his outrageously bagged cadmium eyes makes the expression freeze on her face, and she finds herself turning away.

A muscle in her neck suddenly aches, and she rubs it. 

People continually trickle in. But after a certain point, everything becomes a blur. She’s barely conscious of what’s going on, but the next thing she knows the robots (is that what they are?) have entered the room and distributed new clothes. 

She feels anxious and overly exposed in her newfound getup, but she doesn’t have time to get used to the feeling. A strange sensation envelops the whole room, making her feel like every follicle of her hair is being forcibly pulled out of her body at once, like she’s shedding her skin and being born anew. A strange feeling, one not meant for mere mortals to experience. God help her. God help her. God help-

 

* * *

 

 

Silence. 

Angie Yonaga slowly drifts into consciousness, her aquamarine eyes fluttering open to take in her surroundings.. She’s dressed in her favorite jacket and bathing suit, just like she was wearing it the last time she remembers. Angie notes that her breathing sounds louder than usual, amplified within the confines of…

A box?

No, a locker. 

A normal person would feel strange and trapped in these circumstances, but Angie could not help but smile.

After all, the God of the island was on her side. He always had been, and he never would have forsaken her at any point in the past.

...Right? 

**Author's Note:**

> So you might be asking yourself "why judasim?". Well, there's a few specific reasons. The first and most obvious being that I'm Jewish, so it's the religion that I know the most about. I didn't want to try to delve into anything where I could come off as ignorant.  
> The second being that Judaism is frankly not really a thing at all in Japan. It's very rare, and I thought that it would contribute to her feeling like an outsider. Not only is her family religious, but it's not a common one in Japan, and thus adds to her feeling of isolation.  
> Finally, I thought it'd be an interesting contrast to her kooky "island god" religion ingame.
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please be sure to leave a comment and/or kudos! Thank you so much :)


End file.
